


Juice Bears

by elanorofcastile



Category: We Bare Bears (TV)
Genre: Chef Ice Bear, Fluff, Gen, Post Season 1A, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanorofcastile/pseuds/elanorofcastile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Guys! I just saw the coolest thing on the internet. Have you ever heard of . . . pop up restaurants?" Grizz emphasizes the drama with jazzpaws, waiting for Ice Bear and Panda to ooh and aah in response. They haven't done it yet, but he knows it has to happen one of these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Juice Bears

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hhertzof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/gifts).



> I really hope you enjoy this story, I had such fun writing it! I fell in love with the show recently and relished the opportunity to write a fun slice of life story for your Yuletide gift. A huge thanks to X and S for beta reading for me!

"Guys! I just saw the coolest thing on the internet. Have you ever heard of . . . pop up restaurants?" Grizz emphasizes the drama with jazzpaws, waiting for Ice Bear and Panda to ooh and aah in response. They haven't done it yet, but he knows it has to happen one of these days.

Panda looks up from his midday check of his social media feeds and frowns. "Grizz, didn't we try that already with the food truck? I thought there were permits and stuff that we had to do and anyway, people are dumb and didn't want to eat awesome food. I don't know if I'm ready for that level of disappointment again. I'm still rebuilding my follower numbers."

"Ice Bear is skeptical." He emphasizes his point with a chop of his ax, neatly portioning a salmon filet into two pieces.

"No, look, that's why we'll do it . . . gorilla style! I mean guerilla style. That froyo place I'm banned from went out of business--serves them right--and it's empty while they try to sell it, so I was thinking--" Grizz ignores Panda's sigh "--we could open a juice bar! We could call it... Juice Bear! We aren't a real restaurant so we don't need any permits or anything, we just get to sell awesome juice to people and make lots of friends! Maybe we could even make them brunch!"

"Ice Bear could make quiche. Ice Bear is still skeptical." The salmon sizzles when Ice Bear places it skin side down in the pan and sprinkles salt and pepper over the filets. He sniffs to check the seasoning and sprinkles on a little more pepper. Ice Bear could certainly make more things than quiche for this venture, but after the people ignored his calzones, he isn't ready to share more of his culinary prowess with the humans again.

"Well, quiche would be perfect, thank you, Ice. Our own quiche and juice brunch place; it's going to be great! I found a juicer online and then we just need fruit and stuff, tomatoes, bamboo, pickles, anything people like, especially cool people. C'mon guys, this is going to be so much fun!"

Panda crosses his arms and frowns at Grizz, sure he's just getting ahead of himself again. Undeterred, Grizz puts on his best convincing face and nudges Panda. "You know girls like brunch and definitely they like juice, especially cool girls that like artists, so . . . What do you think, Pan-Pan?" Grizz knows he has him when Panda's face relaxes into a thoughtful look. "Okay, so, the juicer will be here tomorrow so we can practice a bit with it before we open! In the mean time we can work on designing the logo and stuff. Oooh, Chloe can take some flyers to CU, maybe Charlie can hand out flyers at those raves in the woods he knows about! This is going to be awesome."

Grizz breaks out his laptop, designing some cool looking flyers with explosions and fruit on them with a few flowers (because who doesn't like flowers on the table at brunch). Rochester at the copy shop would totally have some colorful paper to print them on that would make everyone want to come.

With a ruler and drafting paper, Ice Bear designs the perfect kitchen. If the humans actually show up and try to appreciate his food instead of ignoring it, he must be prepared to branch out into French pastry at a moment's notice. He wonders if they can source a marble countertop for chocolate tempering in time. If not, well, the people wouldn't know what they missed.

Panda is reluctant at first, but after posting "What's your favorite kind of juice?" on his accounts and having all his friends chime in, he begins thinking up flavor combinations. He looks up fancy fonts on his phone, and starts designing a little menu. This establishment should be classy so they attract the right sort of smart girls. He starts sketching a chef to be their mascot, thinking of some of the awesome chefs from his favorite mangas.

 

With Grizz's flyers designed, Ice Bear's recipe cards in order, and Panda's menu put together, they doze off at the table after dinner. A knock at the door wakes them, and Grizz jumps up in excitement right away, running to the door yelling, "Our juicer!"

The delivery woman makes him sign for the package before he grabs it and runs back to the kitchen. He uses a claw to cut the tape and quickly pull out the box. _Juiceomatic 4000 TM_, the label declares, _Guaranteed even to get juice from a rock!!!_

"Okay, nobody touch the juicer, we're all going to the store and getting tasty things to put in it to practice our menu! We have to make sure to go to Green Feed so we can get organic, that's important." Grizz is so excited he can hardly contain it, visions of cool people having juice and brunch and hanging out just bringing the biggest smile to his face. He shakes himself to focus again. "Come on, everybody paws in, Juice Bear on three?"

Ice Bear is the slowest to put his paw in, but Grizz is so excited he doesn't care, just counts to three and cheers "Juice Bear!"

 

They come home laden with bags of fruit, vegetables, and three pounds of different flavored smoked salmon. Even if it doesn't taste great in juice form, who doesn't love salmon with brunch? Grizz clears the table of sketches and his laptop, leaving Panda and Ice Bear to sort the fruit and fish while he sets up the juicer. It takes a couple tries, so he's glad that the other two are distracted while he finally figures out the configuration of spouts and filters. And, because it wouldn't be a training montage without a good soundtrack, Grizz puts on his favorite internet radio pump-up station.

Machine assembled, Grizz looks over the instruction booklet briefly. He can't wait to try it out, feeling it's pretty easy to figure out now that he knows the basics. "Oooh, it can make smoothies, too, and pulp free! Even better! Okay, so, we can put everything in without having to cut it, just throw it in and we'll have tasty juice in no time! Let's try out--" He looks over at Panda's menu, tapping his paw against his chin as he chooses, "--Summer Sun Blast. Great work on the names, Pan-Pan, they're definitely catchy and cool."

They try all of the drinks, making up new ones and putting stars next to the tasty ones and quietly scratching out the not so good ones (why do people like kale so much? Some human things are inexplicable.) They promise never to speak of the salmon and potato juice: it was, well, awfully salmon flavored, that was at least true to the description. Panda was glad to be a vegetarian during _that_ taste test. Ice Bear makes notes on which quiche recipes match best with each juice, and how many pounds of butter he will need for crusts. Ice Bear refuses to make every one include bacon; he will not bend to the whims of food fads. If anyone asks for a cronut, he will not be held responsible for his actions.

Once they've settled on their best drinks and are very full of juice, it's past dark and the copy shop is closed. They have a dinner of leftover fruit and vegetables, the smoked salmon put in the fridge to eat at a later time (once they've forgotten about the juice incident). Grizz makes a list of things to do before they open the store, feeling good about getting them done the next day:

  1. print flyers
  2. give flyers to Charlie and Chloe to hand out
  3. get all the awesome fruit for juice
  4. sell juice
  5. have brunch with all their new friends!



This is going to be awesome.

 

The three bears sleep soundly and wake up ready to go. Grizz greets the others cheerily in the kitchen with t-shirts emblazoned with Juice Bear and colorful explosion shapes. Grizz hadn't slept from the excitement, but had found some iron-on paper and decided to make t-shirts with a cool design in a funky font to promote their place.

"Wow, Grizz, these are neat, you did a great job." Panda puts his on, pulling the front away to look down at the design. "And you got me a husky size too, aww, you remembered." He turns around to model it a bit, moving his arms to see how it fits to say hello to people. "It's so comfortable."

"Ice Bear is glad you remembered Ice Bear's favorite color." He holds the shirt out, not quite sure if he wants to put it on, but if they are going to make back the money spent on the fruit then he will have to at least try. He puts on the white t-shirt and waits for Grizz's instructions.

"Thanks guys, I worked hard on them." His shirt is a bright green under the iron-on design, and he feels pretty radical. "Okay, so, Pan-Pan and Ice, you guys will go to the store to buy ingredients, I'll make flyers and text Chloe to meet up to give her flyers. I'll see if I can find Charlie to give him flyers, too, then we should meet back at the cave to regroup before tomorrow when we'll open Juice Bear to the excitement of the city!"

The bears do a paws-in and count to three, then climb into their stack to make the trek to the shops. Grizz hops off first at the copy shop, thinking that probably 500 flyers will be enough to get some good buzz going. At the Green Feed, Panda buys dozens of kumquats, limes, bananas, and blueberries, being sure to pick good-looking ones for delicious juice. Ice Bear gets pounds of butter and a big bag of flour, dozens of eggs and onions, and a hunk of gruyere. It would be an easy start for the menu and if nothing happened, well, they need eggs and cheese anyway.

 

Panda and Ice Bear make it back to the cave first, getting everything all packed up and ready for the next day. Grizz comes back later, proudly brandishing the banner for the front window, along with copies of their menu.

"Check it out, brothers: I put up about a hundred flyers, Chloe took a hundred, I left a bunch with a note and a can of Cheese Poofies at the clearing for Charlie, and we'll give out the rest tomorrow for happy customers to share with their friends!" Grizz is tired but excited, and his feet are sore from walking instead of riding on the bear stack. "We're going to do awesome, and I brought a pizza to celebrate so we can chill out tonight before our big opening! Pan-Pan, you get to choose the movie; Ice, uh, could you grab pudding pops later for dessert?"

Ice Bear narrows his eyes but nods, not wanting to upset the balance when there's going to be enough stress tomorrow. "Ice Bear will make sundaes."

They feast and celebrate, Grizz and Panda talking about the cool things they hope to see at the store in the morning. They stuff themselves with pizza and ice cream, falling asleep on the sofa with the end credits to _Solar Eclipse of the Night_ rolling.

 

The next morning rolls around, and the bears load up on fruit and the juicer. The stack takes a little longer to walk over to the shop space than anticipated, the load weighing them down, but they get there before the flyer said they would be open, so they are so set.

But.

 

The sound of that much fruit and eggs hitting the pavement is very squishy. The stack falls apart and drops all of their bags at the sight of the sign on the building: _COMING SOON: NOM NOM'S CUTEST JUICES!!!_

"It doesn't even rhyme!" yells Panda, digging in a bag and coming up with a carton of eggs. "Why is he such a _butt!_ " He starts throwing eggs at the windows, yelling things about butts and stupid fake bears. Grizz stands staring, mouth agape as he takes in the sign, trying to figure out some way this could just be a dream. He's remotely aware of Ice Bear picking up a brick in each paw and putting them through the windows.

The crash of glass and alarm sounding wakes him from his stupor. "Guys! Quick, we need to get out of here!" He starts shoving fruit back into bags from where it's scattered, glad when Panda snaps out of it too. "Don't leave the juicer!"

 

They stack up and run away back to the cave, a dozen smashed eggs, squished bananas, and broken glass outside of Nom Nom's juice bar the only sign they were ever there. Panda texts Chloe, warning her that it was all a wash and she should come over for juice at their place tomorrow to hear all about it.

"Well, we tried. That stupid cute butthead beat us to it." Grizz mopes into his glass of Banana Berry Bombshell, only looking up when Ice Bear sets a plate of onion and ham quiche in front of him with slices of the fanciest smoked salmon.

"Ice Bear will plot revenge." He breaks out his axe and checks it for sharpness.

"Aww, thanks brother. You know how to make a bear feel better." Grizz takes a bite of the quiche. "This is amazing, thank you."

Panda gets a slice of broccoli and gruyere quiche from Ice Bear, eating it happily as he makes a post about being dreamcrushed. "I don't know how he got the jump on us; it's not like he has a secret camera in our cave. We would notice the wifi slowing down or something."

They eat and think, enjoying the quiche and juice, moving on and looking for their next adventure together. None of them notice the camera disguised as a spider, still watching from its hiding space between the fridge and the wall.

 

Nom Nom smiles at the screen showing the feed from the cave. "You idiot bears. I'll be cute again, just you wait. Just you wait!" His security guard brings him a tall glass of eucalyptus pop with ice, bendy straw at the perfect angle, and sets it by his paw. "I _will_ be the cutest again."


End file.
